The present invention relates to Holter cardiac diagnostic systems and, more specifically, relates to cardiac diagnostic systems which automatically scan Holter tapes to identify ectopic heart beats.
Ever since the inception of the Holter technique in identifying cardiac arrhythmia problems, the manner in which the electrocardiogram results are displayed has been constantly improved. Currently, apparatus is available to display the electrocardiogram signal on an oscilloscope so as to permit a technician to detect visually the ectopic beats. It is also common practice to employ a multichannel strip-chart recorder to provide a permanent record of the desired portions of the Holter tape. Typically, the Holter tape is taken or recorded over a 24-hour period, and it is displayed on an oscilloscope with a skilled technician or operator viewing the tape to identify all ectopic beats. While it does not take 24 hours for a technician to review a complete Holter tape, it is not possible to speed this up to such an extent that a tape may be reviewed in only a few minutes. It typically takes on the order of an hour for a technician to review a single 24-hour Holter tape. Needless to say, this becomes extremely tiring to the technician, resulting in at least an increased probability of errors, which the technician may make during his visual review of the electrocardiogram data.
At the present time, there are commercially available scanners which can operate at speeds up to 120 times real time. Some of these provide limited automatic arrhythmia detection, and generate a summary report. However, prior to the present invention, there has never been a device which can automatically scan at rates up to 240 times real time and produce graphical and alphanumeric summaries of the recorded ectopic activity.